School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Spalding High School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 60 families who named Spalding High School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 149 and 202 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Lincolnshire actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1.36

first choices for every place available

202 first preferences for 149 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Spalding High School

There is no published appeal success rate for Spalding High School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Lincolnshire as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Lincolnshire, 40.3% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 778 of 1,930 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Lincolnshire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lincolnshire ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Spalding High School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. In each of those years more families named it as their first choice than it had places available.

First preferences per place at Spalding High School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.11 per place 157 first choices 141 places 2016/17 1.19 per place 162 first choices 136 places 2017/18 1.26 per place 165 first choices 131 places 2018/19 1.25 per place 160 first choices 128 places 2019/20 1.11 per place 166 first choices 150 places 2020/21 1.31 per place 195 first choices 149 places 2021/22 1.35 per place 203 first choices 150 places 2022/23 1.12 per place 168 first choices 150 places 2023/24 1.12 per place 168 first choices 150 places 2024/25 1.28 per place 191 first choices 149 places 2025/26 1.31 per place 197 first choices 150 places 2026/27 1.36 per place 202 first choices 149 places
First preferences per place at Spalding High School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 202 first preferences for 149 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Spalding High School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 141 157 136 1.11
2016/17 136 162 131 1.19
2017/18 131 165 128 1.26
2018/19 128 160 119 1.25
2019/20 150 166 126 1.11
2020/21 149 195 141 1.31
2021/22 150 203 143 1.35
2022/23 150 168 137 1.12
2023/24 150 168 138 1.12
2024/25 149 191 136 1.28
2025/26 150 197 143 1.31
2026/27 149 202 142 1.36

Places offered

149

in 2026/27

Named first choice

202

300 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

70.3%

142 of 202

Offers to families outside the council

17%

26 of 149 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

763

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

751

98.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

12

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

246

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Spalding High School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Spalding High School reported 12 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.4% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Spalding High School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 550 1,100 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 996 places 987 on roll 2010/11 996 places 985 on roll 2011/12 996 places 985 on roll 2012/13 998 places 955 on roll 2013/14 998 places 958 on roll 2014/15 985 places 956 on roll 2015/16 985 places 957 on roll 2016/17 985 places 976 on roll 2017/18 996 places 958 on roll 2018/19 1,027 places 973 on roll 2020/21 1,027 places 962 on roll 2021/22 1,027 places 967 on roll 2022/23 1,009 places 970 on roll 2023/24 1,009 places 937 on roll 2024/25 1,009 places 943 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Community school
Admissions policy
Selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lincolnshire

Postcode PE11 2PJ. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 120642).

Other contested secondary schools in Lincolnshire

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.